Former guard, several York inmates say they've been ignored by leadership over poor conditions
YORK — Dale Sweek took a job at the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services because it paid well. He only stayed there, though, because he thought he could help people.
But after six years of working at the women's prison in York, Sweek said, he had been through so much physical and mental stress that he was "broken down." He thought of the coworker who had a heart attack shortly after retiring. He read research that indicated correctional staff have higher rates of heart disease and higher blood pressure than even other law enforcement officers.
Another major reason Sweek said he left his position in 2023 was the way things were run at the women's prison.
Guards like Sweek are more than just security. During his time at the prison, Sweek provided emergency medical care, took care of individuals experiencing mental health episodes and inspected buildings for safety and sanitation. The way the prison handled issues in those areas worried Sweek and was echoed in the stories of a handful of incarcerated individuals at the prison interviewed by the News-Times.
One incarcerated woman said she was locked in a shower cell for 20 hours with no food or bedding after refusing to go to the mental health unit. Another individual provided records suggesting the prison's administration willingly ignored over 20 complaints about ventilation and air conditioning in one of the facility's buildings.
Sweek did not speak to the specific concerns detailed by the incarcerated individuals for this story, but he shared the incarcerated individuals' frustration about the prison's available mental health resources and the sanitation and safety of the facility.
Warden Angela Folts-Oberle declined an interview request, but a spokesperson for the prison answered questions over email.
"NCCW has a mental health department that supports the needs of individuals in all areas of the facility, including individual therapy, group therapy and clinical programming. NDCS policy also establishes specific timeframes for mental health professionals to meet with certain individuals," wrote the department's spokesperson, Dayne Urbanovsky.
"The NCCW safety and sanitation officer completes rounds and inspections consistently throughout the facility and holds quarterly meetings with facility leadership to review data and recommendations," she said. Urbanovsky said the facility is accredited by the American Correctional Association, most recently in February 2024. She said the accreditation process involves "file reviews, evaluations and an on-site inspection of the facility by ACA auditors."
Locked in a shower cell for 20 hours
Maya Shields, 24, said she was locked in a shower cell with no bedding or food for 20 hours in September of this year. Shields is currently housed in the prison's Behavior Intervention and Programming Unit, or, BIPU, which is women's prison's highest security unit.
BIPU consists of a series of secure, single-person cells along a hallway. The showers in BIPU are also secure, individual cells, Shields said.
Shields said she went into the shower cell and refused to come out after guards said they were taking her to a different unit at the prison, a unit focused on mental health that she said is for individuals who are incapable of taking care of themselves.
Eventually, Shields said, the guards decided to leave her in the shower cell. But when she then asked to leave or at least for food or bedding, she said, she was given nothing and had to stay there for almost a full day. They told her to use the shower water to drink and the drain to relieve herself, she said.
Urbanovsky did not directly respond to a question about Shields' situation but said BIPU is "mission-specific housing that addresses an individual's behavior and risk posed to others."
She said individuals incarcerated in BIPU get six hours outside their room each day, time that may be spent with other people.
Shields said the prison uses both BIPU and the mental health unit to put away people who have mental health or behavioral issues.
"They don't know what to do with people that have behavioral issues so they just lock them away," Shields said during a phone interview.
Carol Wilkins, who has been incarcerated in York since 2010, said in an in-person interview that she has spent time in both BIPU and the mental health unit. She said she struggled with isolation in BIPU but said the mental health unit, which has unit-specific programming, was actually "a really good program" for her — the first time she was there. She said going through the programming again hasn't helped her.
Sweek said that as a guard one of the hardest things about working at the women's prison was working with people struggling with mental health issues, especially people in the mental health unit. "Seeing those inmates — they've committed crimes, but you know they shouldn't be there because their mental health is so bad. They should be in a mental health facility," Sweek said.
That's something that Shields has argued in an essay for the Nebraska Criminal Justice Review about the use of segregation on people with mental health issues, writing, "I feel people with severe mental health issues should reside in a facility with actual proper medical care & treatment."
"This prison has potential," Wilkins said, praising some staff members, including the warden, but felt like more resources needed to go toward it, as opposed to the men's prisons. She said this was especially true of BIPU and the mental health unit. For one thing, Wilkins said, the mental health unit needs a new coat of paint and a new intercom system.
'It starts at the top': Air quality in the A+B wings of North Hall
For over two years, Sweek said, he was in charge of doing safety and sanitation inspections at one of the prison's buildings. He said it felt like the administration never listened to the suggestions he made – whether it was about rusty metal bunks, mold on the ceiling or issues with the prison's water.
"You are supposed to report these things, and then you go to the top and then it's supposed to trickle down into maintenance and things are supposed to get fixed or replaced and they don't want to listen to you," Sweek recalled.
In April and May of 2022, Chris Henderson, a transgender man incarcerated at the prison, and 20 other individuals incarcerated at the women's prison wrote grievances to Folts-Oberle about problems with the exhaust system and air conditioning in the A+B wings of the prison's North Hall.
Sweek said the air in North Hall was a regular issue when he was there. "They usually get it fixed as soon as they can, but they usually put a Band-Aid on it," he recalled.
Each of the grievances, copies of which Henderson shared with the News-Times, received the same response, saying there were no issues with the air temperature and that a contractor had been contacted to service the exhaust system. At the bottom of each grievance appears to be a signature from the prison's warden, Folts-Oberle.
Henderson also wrote to the Office of the Ombudsman, which investigates civilian complaints against state agencies and employees, about the heating and cooling systems in the A+B wings of North Hall.
The ombudsman office's reply in July 2022, Henderson said, disappointed him.
"I addressed your concerns with Warden Folts-Oberle, and she stated that the facility has not received any complaints about the air conditioning not working in North Hall," an assistant Ombudsman wrote to Henderson, according to a copy of the letter Henderson shared with the News-Times.
The warden's claim to the ombudsman that she had received no complaints appears to contradict the more than 20 responses to grievances about air conditioning with her signature. But over email, Urbanovsky doubled down on Folts-Oberle's assertion that there were no grievances filed about the air conditioning in North Hall during that time.
"We completed a search of our grievance records and there were no grievances located regarding a non-working air conditioner in North Hall A & B wings from March 1, 2022, to July 31, 2022," Urbanovsky wrote.
Henderson was disappointed by what the warden told the ombudsman's office. "If the warden is doing this, what does that mean for people under her? She sets the standard," Henderson said.
The ombudsman's response also bothered him. "I was pissed, but I wasn't surprised by it. The people who are supposed to help us didn't go past the warden," Henderson said, referring to the ombudsman's response.
Ombudsman Julie Rogers said her office encourages incarcerated individuals to use the grievance process on any issues to see if they can get issues handled themselves. If that's not working, then her office intervenes. They are mainly focused on seeing if the agency is going to solve the problem —– whatever the problem is, she said.
Rogers said her office does not currently have any complaints about heating or air at the women's prison.
Sweek suggested cases like this weren't uncommon —– things regularly didn't get fixed.
Eventually, for Sweek, trying to improve prison conditions and help incarcerated individuals suffering with mental health issues caused his own health to suffer. That's why he felt like he ultimately had to leave.
He blamed prison leadership for not taking the suggestions of the people under them seriously enough. While he felt that a lot needed to change, Sweek said, "It starts at the top. It starts at the warden, and that trickles down."
